Articles and Multimedia

On May 1 the 2017 TELL Delaware survey will open for educators in Delaware. TELL Delaware is an anonymous statewide survey of licensed school-based educators to assess teaching conditions at the school, district, and state level. The survey offers educators an avenue to share their opinions on topics such as use of time, professional development, teacher leadership, school leadership, and parent engagement. If used effectively, the data also helps schools generate effective plans to ensure that every Delaware educator has the supportive environment necessary to help students achieve at the highest levels!

Modern literacy has always meant being able to both read and write narrative in the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. Just being able to read is not sufficient. Being able to actively create rather than just passively consume new media is important for the obvious reason that it teaches literacy and job skills that are highly valued in a digital society.

Dr. Rankin, professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She had heard of Twitter... She collaborated with the UT Dallas, Arts and Technology - Emerging Media and Communications (EMAC) faculty and as a Graduate student in EMAC I assisted her in her experiment.

The Atlantic, in this October 2013 article, takes a look at the factors which drive veteran and new educators to quit the profession and what makes them want to stay. The article paints a sobering statistical picture and challenges much of the rhetoric used to try and explain this very damaging reality.

The efficacy of using student test scores as a significant component of teacher evaluations is a polarizing topic, often debated by those focused on “reform at all costs” and those who want any type of reform to be measured, valuable, and valid. This commentary/article from Education Week takes the position that the idea of using student test scores as a overwhelming determinant in teacher evaluations, something which continues to be pushed for here in Delaware, is short-sighted and lacking in scientific validity.

A judge in North Carolina ruled on Friday that the state’s repeal of due process protections for teachers was unconstitutional. The ruling, by Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood, rejected the state’s argument that stripping career status for educators “was reasonable and necessary to serve an important public purpose.” Six classroom teachers, supported by the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) and National Education Association (NEA), filed the suit on against the law on December 17, 2013.

Stephanie Rossi has taught Advanced Placement U.S. history at Wheat Ridge High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, for over 10 years. She probably never thought her students would one day protest the curriculum used in her class. But that was before the conservative majority on the Jefferson County School Board proposed a resolution that would meddle with the way AP U.S. history is taught, a decision that prompted hundreds of students from seven different schools to walk out of their classrooms in protest.

Three years ago, very few education leaders and experts predicted that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) would become one of the hottest political footballs of 2014. While a certain degree of controversy was inevitable, the intensity has caught many off-guard. And recently, the comedian Louis C.K. brought the attention to a new level when he tweeted that the standards had turned his daughter against math.